DATE: Friday, October 31, 1997              TAG: 9710310871

SECTION: SPORTS                  PAGE: C9   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY JAY LIDINGTON, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: NEWPORT NEWS                      LENGTH:   69 lines

EDWARDS WINS 3RD STRAIGHT EASTERN REGION TITLE KEMPSVILLE WINS GIRLS CROSS COUNTRY TITLE; COX CAPTURES BOYS CHAMPIONSHIP

A torrid pace translated into a record time Thursday for Tallwood's Pam Edwards, who scorched the city park course on her way to a third straight Eastern Region cross country title.

Edwards completed the 5K course in 18:07, a record for the course and the meet, officials said. She was nearly a minute ahead of second-place finisher Erin Holmes of Kempsville.

Granby's Delano Harris won the boys race in 16:14, one-tenth of a second better than Princess Anne's Kevin Rhue.

The pace ``was quick but not as quick as next week,'' Edwards said of the state cross country meet Nov. 8 in Warrenton.

The top 15 individual boys and girls runners, as well as the top four teams from each, advance to the state meet.

Kempsville won the girls team title, placing three runners - Holmes, Kelly Lawver and Marcie Anderson - in the top four. Teammate Sally Harrison finished 11th.

Those four runners comprise ``The Pack,'' whose unselfish style is taking Kempsville to its third state meet. The Chiefs finished sixth last year at state and are shooting for a top-3 finish this time.

``They will sacrifice each other for the team,'' Chiefs coach Kendall Tata said. ``If one of them falls off, the rest know they have to step it up.

``They started smart. . . . They just climbed the whole race. They picked people off one by one. When they got to the part where the three of them were second, they just pushed and pulled each other.''

Cox won the boys team championship, paced by four runners with times of 17:00 or less, its best outing of the year. It was a point better than Kellam in the team standings.

The Falcons' strength in the region meet, as well as throughout their undefeated Beach District season, was teamwork. Their best finisher was eighth-place Brad Sorgen, who finished with 16:37. His six teammates finished within two minutes of him.

``They understand how to run together,'' Cox coach Tim Webb said. ``They didn't run like seven individuals. They run as a team all the time.''

In the boys race, Harris was determined not to be worn out by the fast pace, as he was during his third-place performance in the Newport News Invitational at the park earlier this season. Instead, he stayed with the pack.

But at the halfway mark, Harris made his move, barely getting by Rhue and Kempsville's Josh Kagan in a photo-close finish. Harris called it his ``best race of the year'' because of the strategy employed.

``I earned this one,'' he said. ``They made it fast for themselves. I ran my own race.''

The Comets' senior battled fatigue during the race but reached deep when he needed to move up in the field. ``I was feeling kind of dead the whole race,'' he said. ``I was telling myself I didn't work this hard for nothing.''

``I had to run him down with 15-20 yards to go,'' Rhue said of Harris. ``He looked like he was running out of gas, and I just went for it. If it had gone another 10 yards, I'd have run him down.''

For the Eastern Region runners, their next opponents will be from the cross country hotbed of Northern Virginia. Though Edwards finished ninth last year and 14th in 1995 in the state meet, she has done well in meets this year against those opponents.

``In races I've run, they got out fast,'' she said. ``They're very strong. If I can get out with them, maybe I can have a chance.'' ILLUSTRATION: Photo

NHAT MEYER/The Virginian-Pilot

Granby's Delano Harris won the Eastern Region boys cross country

race in 16:14, one-tenth of a second better than Princess Anne's

Kevin Rhue.

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